The celeb watchers at the bangaloremirror.com report that Mr. Cruise’s armed escorts escort him to the bathroom: “The Top Gun star doesn’t like to be alone in the washroom, unlike other celebrities, who ditch their bodyguards outside the bathroom door. Tom takes his bodyguard right into the loo and stand guard close, while he answers nature’s call.” That’s not a “quirk.” It’s proper protocol.
Back in March, TTAG reported on the murder of Brigham University professor and gun collector Kay Mortensen. sltrib.com reports that police have now arrested Mortensen’s son Roger Kay [above] and his wife Pamela Ann for slitting the prof’s throat. “Detectives also executed a search warrant Thursday night when they arrested the Mortensens at their home in Payson. Tracy said detectives found guns in the home and were trying to determine whether any of them are the weapons missing from Kay Mortensen’s home. Roger Mortensen is not allowed to have guns because of previous convictions, Tracy said, and he may receive additional charges. Also, Tracy said, detectives found a small amount of marijuana in Roger Mortensen’s car.” The couple’s attorney says they stand by their original explanation for the crime: robbers killed Kay Mortensen.
“Details about what happened to two boys found shot to death with their father’s handgun trickled out as sheriff’s deputies tried to piece together the evidence,” contracostatimes.com reports. “San Bernardino County sheriff’s Sgt. Frank Bell said investigators are considering the possibility of a suicide pact or a murder- suicide. ‘I don’t think we’ll ever absolutely or concretely know for sure whether (it was a) murder-suicide or suicide pact, but obviously something along those lines happened.’ Bell said the gun was kept in a case that wasn’t locked.” The obvious lesson: there are only two places for a gun. On your hip or in a locked safe. The less obvious takeaway: gun owners must constantly monitor their family’s mental health and react according. Including your own.
Ever since the massacre at Columbine, U.S. law enforcement officials have gradually realized that a responding officer facing what’s called an “active shooter” (a.k.a. spree killer) can’t wait for the SWAT team to arrive. The cop in question has to go in, go in alone and go in hot. The lead trainer at the Southeast Area Law Enforcement (SEALE) regional in-service academy in Bedford, OH says roger that. Ron Borsch bases his recommendation on his ongoing research into “rapid mass murder”: incidents with four or more victims during the same event and in the same location (schools, work sites, churches, malls, and other public places) within the same time frame (20 minutes or less). He’s studied nearly 40 cases, in the U.S. and abroad. Here are some of his data points, via the good folks at Force Science News . . .
Your mother wanted me to tell you: you can put several eyes out with this thing, in rapid succession. Click here for more info from fullyautomaticairgun.com and some relevant YouTubery. Meanwhile, the stats:
30 round magazine capacity
.177 or .22 caliber
Fires BBs or pellets
Muzzle velocities up to 600 fps with the stock barrel
Semi and Fully automatic operation
Accepts any CO2 or HPA pressure tank with ASA threads
A letter to the editor re: the “well-regulated militia ain’t you, you stupid bastard” interpretation of the Second Amendent by one Nancy Fink. Ms. Fink is from Highland Park, which recently had its handgun ban struck down by the United States Supreme Court. The missive was printed in the Chicago Tribune, of course.
I’d like to respond to Emerson Bolen’s recent comment that according to the Second Amendment a well regulated militia is composed of and depends on being able to call up individuals already bearing arms, as these were not supplied to them when a militia was formed. That may have once been so, but our current, well-regulated militia does supply weapons, as well as training in their use. In any case, when guns are used by individuals to commit crimes, any militia they may belong to or are prepared to belong to is not very well-regulated. Guns used for any individual purpose outside of a well-regulated militia don’t seem to be a protected use under the 2nd amendment.
On one hand, I feel sorry for the Brits. They’ve seen violent crime soar in the last decade, and they have no, I repeat, no gun rights. Whether or not these two facts are related is a matter for debate. Personally, I believe a society without gun rights is like a day without sunshine. And God knows the Land of Hope and Glory is SAD enough as it is. On the other hand, would you really want to give these people firearms? I would, but then I do everything I can to avoid a Darwin Award, even as I realize its benefit to society and mankind. Know what I mean?
Click here for the questionnaire in question, from the Rocky Mountain Gun Owners. For a guy who talks about how open he is to new ideas, Maes sarcastic response to question 8 shows a very different ‘tude. “Would you support Vermont-style legislation which would simply allow law-abiding citizens to carry a concealed handgun for any reason except for the commission of a crime?” the survey asks. Nope. “We are not Vermont or Alaska,” Maes writes in. That’s now become “yes, I absolutely would.” To his credit, Maes slips in a Jimmy Cliff lyric in reply to question nine . . .
Last July, David Serbeck and the [unnamed] president of his Home Owners’ Association were driving around their Bluffdale, Utah neighborhood as part of a neighborhood watch. A recent wave of automobile burglaries in the neighborhood had them in condition orange. The two men encountered a group of teenage girls walking through the ‘hood. They questioned the girls and let them go on their way. A short time later, the men encountered a vehicle matching the description of one connected with the car break-ins. They followed the car to get a license number. Unbeknownst to the men, the same group of girls they’d seen walking through the neighborhood earlier that night were in the car. The girls drove to the home of Reggie Campos. Reggie’s daughter told her father they were being stalked by two strange men in an SUV.
